Freedom Summer Reins Late Spring

¶ … Freedom

SUMMER REINS

Late Spring always smells different and every year, for the last few weeks of school, those scent distract me while I am in class and pull at me just like the images of the hand-shaped apple pie aroma that used to grab Looney Toons cartoon characters the in old cartoons. The best part of Summer vacation is, quite obviously, not having to go to school for two months; the second best part of Summer is being able to do more of what I want, when I want without adult supervision. That psychological freedom means (almost) as much to me as the literal freedom from school. In May, I stare at the window in class sometimes, visualize it as the magic gateway to freedom and wishing I could just float right outside through it.

Still, every now and then, my parents intrude into my life as though they have the same right to do that now as they did when I was a child. My mother always used to tell me "Listen: you're my child and as long as you live under my roof, you'll follow my rules" until I started responding: "Mom: I understand that it's your house and that whatever it is I am right now has to listen to you, but just because I'm your son doesn't mean that I'm still a child. I don't need the same kind of supervision that I needed half my life ago." I also tried to explain that when you ride (horses), you try not to overcorrect because it can break an animal's spirit; that's also one of the reasons you try to give them time outside by themselves. Being controlled unnecessarily at my age is a lot like never taking a saddle off a horse or never letting them out of their pens. Frankly, it was ridiculous to have a whole family meeting to decide if I should be allowed to go to the barrel race at the annual rodeo alone this year, ("alone" meaning with about six friends my age and older, of course). Most of my friends have been going to the rodeo without their parents since they were about twelve. I hated having to hang out with my family instead of my friends at the rodeo; and it has nothing to do with not loving my family because I do. But to someone my age, the rodeo is just no longer a family thing; it's a friend thing, at least for me. After all, I don't ask to hang out with my friends on Thanksgiving, because that's a family thing and I understand that.

My parents justified "supervising" me by saying that the rodeo was "too far" from home for me to be alone, but it is only a bit further than school and they let me make that trip "alone" at night all the time. Even if there are legitimate safety issues about being out "alone," they don't apply when I'm actually not "alone," but with all of my friends.